Spider-Man: Homecoming Review

        If you would’ve told a younger version of me that Spider-Man would appear in the MCU. I honestly would not believe you in one slightest instant. Out of all the characters of Marvel Comics, Spidey is one of my favorite characters. I was gob smacked that this joint venture between studios was even possible. To me, it’s a rare instance of two studios having a cooperative venture of having a beloved character appear in a massive franchise. 

1. High School film

        I distinctly remember the series of events that transpired when Sony decided to team up with Disney to have their character appear in a Marvel film. While I’ll get to that in a little while, this is probably one of the best non-origin comic book films to appear in the MCU. Mind you, The Incredible Hulk was a sort of quasi-origin film, with this one however, it managed to keep the core tenets of being a Spider-Man film. 

        Now, with the number of Spider-Man films that have came out at that time, the high school aspect was only shown in the first films in the different adaptations. More so that it was only relegated to the first act, since with how it’s mostly focused on the senior year aspect since they have a graduation in the first and second films of the different adaptations. This is the first instance where the whole thing takes place during Parker’s sophomore year. Basically, paying tribute to the past high school dramas of the 80s.

        The film is mostly straightforward, so much so that it’s practically grounded with nothing big or world ending where it’s not too big for Peter. We see that it follows up after the events of Civil War, Peter is now learning on how to balance his regular life and being Spider-Man. He yearns to be a part of the Avengers but is talked down by being told to focus on street-level crime. Meanwhile, we see that Adrian Toomes, a former blue collar dons a Vulture suit to steal material from the Battle of New York. 

        What I like about the film is that it’s mostly grounded with what it wants to do. Showing Peter attempting to balance his dual life while also attempting to show that he’s mature enough to be a part of the Avengers. Tom Holland is as of now the best to portray Parker, obviously he’s younger but he shows that while he does have abilities. He doesn’t have the maturity to handle it. 

        The montage of seeing him do the low-level stuff like stopping a thief or giving a direction to a woman is so Spider-Man. In the sense that he’s like basically doing a public service while also trying to get some answer that he’s ready for the big leagues. What makes the film is that it shows the sides of Peter being a hero and being a regular student. I’ll first talk about him being a hero. Now, he’s not that good of a hero. To me, it’s refreshing that when he's attempting to stop a crime, it goes wrong where it affects everyone negatively. 

        The scene in question that represents that despite seeing him attempting to be heroic is in the first instance of seeing the criminals with alien weapons. While Peter is attempting to stop the bank robbers, he gets cocky when he faces an advanced weapon where it blows up a sandwich shop he visited earlier. It’s a refreshing thing where it puts perspective on Peter where he went toe to toe against Captain America, he’s irresponsible with how he uses his heroism. 

        It gets to a point where in some instances, Tony bails out Peter when his life is almost put in danger. This is the one thing where I remember when it came out was that his interpretation of Spider-Man was too close to being Iron Man. The complaint was that Peter was like an Iron Man jr., considering that his suit has multiple inputs. In my opinion, the use of Tony in the film was mostly to show him disciplining Peter when things go wrong. And be like a father figure to him. 

        Now with the actual high school stuff, it’s one of the highlights since this is the first time that we see Peter being a high school student. All of it isn’t half-baked in the slightest, so much so that we even have moments where Peter is cocky enough to think he’s better than school. What makes the school angle work is that he has a friend. Now, I can imagine some die-hards were upset that Harry Osbourne didn’t make an appearance, but I bought that this film is it’s own thing by having a different interpretation. 

        I like how Ned is the connective tissue for Peter for having a regular school life. So much so, that he worries about Peter and helps him understand just what exactly he’s getting himself into when dealing with the high-tech criminals. The school stuff is great and it’s such a Spider-Man thing where Peter wants to be able to join the other students, but he just can’t since there’s something bigger than that. All of it hammers the theme that is universal to the character and it’s responsibility.

        In some regards, this film is like a part one of a long extensive origin story. One where Peter must prove himself and Tony Stark that he is the hero that is in the same league as Iron Man. We see that just how Peter takes action in his own hands but comes up short by having the situation bite him. For one thing it’s fresh, since we see that he hasn’t yet mastered his own suit by rigging it to have total control. 

        I might as well talk about the villain Adrian Toomes. With the films that we’ve seen in Phase 3 so far, the villains have gotten a lot of better. Mind you, none of them come close to Loki. Anyways, what sets Adrian apart is that he feels slighted against Stark when he makes his job obsolete. Turning into a life of crime to provide for his family. Like I said before, this film isn’t a big film, but one where the stakes are low where it makes Toomes understandable as a villain. 

        I think the best scene involving both Toomes and Peter is when he’s driving Parker and his date to prom. I was not expecting the twist where Peter’s girlfriend’s dad is also the villain. Just the ride alone is uncomfortable and all it took to have Adrian figure out who Peter is was Parker’s date. It’s those scenes that has the sweat dripping since we don’t know how it’ll play out and what he’s going to do when he literally has Parker in the car. 

        Lastly, I got to talk about the suit that is used in the film. Since this is a follow up after Captain America’s film, we see suit in it’s full form. Some people complain that it’s too reminiscent of Iron Man, but it works in a sense where Spidey has more practical use of his webs. Also, we see that his eyes are expressive in the same way as that feature appeared in Deadpool. It’s ingenious to have him use the homemade suit when he’s attempting to stop Adrian. 

        The whole final confrontation is subverted when we see him use his first suit. It gives him the underdog edge since he must rely on a limited supply of web on how to stop Adrian from stealing more of Stark’s technology. There isn’t a final fight per se, but just seeing Peter save the day without the use of fancy tech gives it a refreshing look where we’re nervous about him since he doesn’t have anything advanced. 

2. How Spidey Came “Home”

        This is the longest review that I’ve written so far, I believe. To make the word count even longer is simply explaining how both Sony and Disney practically worked together to have this character appear. As I said earlier, I remember just how it played out. Sony encountered a hack 10 years ago, and they were trying anyway to spice up the Spider-Man IP since their recent entry didn’t make enough in the box-office to which the studio was satisfied. 

        All it took was a chance meeting with the people of Marvel Studios that it was massive news in pop-culture where a character that wasn’t immediately part of the Marvel Studios umbrella was going to be a part of the franchise. The gamble paid off big time since the character is very marketable and is people’s favorite among the Marvel Comics universe. In one way, it was a slow step for the studio to have the characters of the parent company appear in a Marvel-centric movie. 

3. Overall

        Spider-Man: Homecoming is one of the best debut films in the MCU. So much so that it’s up there with the other films that have defined the MCU as a whole.